The Levant: Let Us Dare to Hope for Peace
The following question was posed to one of the artificial intelligence programs: Has the Levant ever experienced a true period of peace since its existence?
The answer is grim. The region has known periods of calm, but never lasting peace.
The only period that can be described as stable was the Pax Romana, from the first to the third century. A peace imposed by the sword, a pax manu militari. A peace at the price of blood, the toll of which even artificial intelligence would be unable to assess.
The various conflicts were motivated primarily by religious reasons, linked to other political or territorial considerations.
Ironically, today the only concept capable of offering true peace bears the name of the sole common ancestor of the three monotheistic religions that have succeeded one another, and for which so much blood was shed, and continues to be shed: Avraham, Abraham, Ibrahim.
In the name of Yahweh, Allah, or God, people fight each other. And yet, many yearn for lasting peace, but this peace comes at a price: forgiveness.
How many generations will it take for this forgiveness to finally be granted, and for genuine peace to become possible between peoples who have been killing each other for centuries, on and over the same territory?
Yet, in the three Abrahamic religions, the same precept is repeated and chanted:
“I completely forgive anyone who has hurt or offended me.”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
“The retribution for evil is equivalent evil. But whoever forgives and restores peace, his reward belongs to God.”
These three stanzas belong respectively to the three religions, in the order of their appearance.
The crimes committed by each side against the other are abominable. And trying to go back to the Stone Age to determine which people occupied which territory is futile and pointless. The Phoenicians, for example, extended as far as Gibraltar. Should we then claim the countries that our ancestors colonized? Certainly not, especially since we already struggle to manage the 10,452 km² of our small country.
It is difficult to forget the still-open wounds and smoldering ruins of the last wars. But are future generations condemned to bear the weight of our mistakes?
At some point, we must heal the past and think about the future: the future of our children, their children, and those who will follow. Two thousand years of history and conflict for a few hundred years of peace: the equation speaks for itself.
We don't choose our family, nor the country in which we are born. But we can influence the course of events. All it takes is swallowing our pride and forgiving. Forgiveness is probably the most difficult step of all.
The contemporary philosopher Jonathan Lockwood Huie wrote:
“Forgive others, not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace.”
Our generation has been lulled by war all its life, with only about fifteen years of respite. Lebanon is perhaps the only country in the world to have been the stage for other people's wars: bloc wars, support wars, proxy wars. Even its civil war wasn't really a civil war.
It is time our country was finally spared its own wars, and especially those of others.
Perhaps it is naive to hope for lasting peace and to believe that we could prove the Poppys' refrain wrong:
"I wanted, I hoped that peace would reign supreme… But everything continued, no, nothing changed."
At present, everything seems to be converging toward a settlement of the conflict, the hope of peace; it is probably naive to cling to this hope.
As Virgil Gheorghiu wrote in The Twenty-Fifth Hour, hell is losing all hope. We already endure physical hell every day; there is no need to add a moral hell to it. That is why, let us dare to make peace…